Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 21: Safeguarding the Historic Centre of Jacmel
Summary: Jacmel's safeguarding measures set against the planning work already done there, including the city master-plan study carried out under the Appui aux Municipalités project by the Benjamin-Jadotte architecture and planning firm with UNDP finance, and an identification of the historic center's high-value buildings.
Key Findings
- The bulletin traces Jacmel preservation studies from an ONTRP identification in 1980, an ISPAN pre-inventory in 1992, Route-2004 studies in 1996, and later local urban planning and tourism planning work.
- The Plan local d'Urbanisme de Jacmel is presented as the first global approach proposing a sustainable development strategy around watershed water control, competitiveness and solidarity development, and coordination of departmental and city actions.
- The article says Jacmel's renewed service and local tourism activity after the Route de l'Amitie in 1976 created uncontrolled pressure on the historic center.
- The note identifies threats to Jacmel historic center as underuse or abandonment of old buildings, aggressive atypical construction, absence of intervention and construction standards, lack of protection plans, and drainage weakness causing repeated floods.
- The issue reports that Jacmel accounted for 20 percent of national coffee exports in the historical period described in the article.
- The chronicle criticizes the DPZ proposal for Port-au-Prince because raising blocks 80 cm above the road would imply demolition of buildings identified by ISPAN as historic or of cultural interest.
Full Description
Jacmel's safeguarding measures set against the planning work already done there, including the city master-plan study carried out under the Appui aux Municipalités project by the Benjamin-Jadotte architecture and planning firm with UNDP finance, and an identification of the historic center's high-value buildings. One issue of the Bulletin de l'ISPAN, the monthly bulletin of Haiti's Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National, which ran from June 2009 to at least November 2011 and documented one monument, site or historic center per issue.
How to cite
Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (ISPAN), 2011, Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 21: Safeguarding the Historic Centre of Jacmel, https://www.haiti.org/